Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prosperous and beautiful To me seem not to wear The yoke of conscience masterful, Which galls me everywhere. I […]

Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19th, 1836 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their […]

I love thy music, mellow bell, I love thine iron chime, To life or death, to heaven or hell, Which […]

Trees in groves, Kine in droves, In ocean sport the scaly herds, Wedge-like cleave the air the birds, To northern […]

I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic […]

Virtue runs before the muse And defies her skill, She is rapt, and doth refuse To wait a painter’s will. […]

On being asked, Whence is the flower? In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in […]

Man was made of social earth, Child and brother from his birth; Tethered by a liquid cord Of blood through […]

Though loth to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My buried thought For the priest’s cant, Or […]

Why should I keep holiday, When other men have none? Why but because when these are gay, I sit and […]